If you happened to have drove through Rua dos Judeus lately, you would have noticed work in full swing at the Augustinian convent : Labourers carrying buckets of mud on their heads, masons assembling laterite blocks, officials pointing into the distance and mumbling something to themselves, trucks pulling up, workers carting away debris – the…
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More often than not, I find myself in a room with people who do not get architectural conservation. ‘Why should we preserve that?’ ‘Its outdated’ ‘Theres a land crunch, we need to raze this to the ground and build over’ are just few of the reactions one could record. After countless hours spent in dissertations,…
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It wasn’t so long ago when we could stand at the entry road to the Patto Centre and have an undisturbed view of Gerard da Cunha’s Central Library sitting immaculately in its setting. This was made possible only because the surrounding plots in it’s line of sight were all barren. We even wrote a whole…
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Lately there seems to be a certain buzz around Ilhe de Jua, St. Estevam. The fields that were once central to the identity of this Goan village have been taken up for farming after a gap of 2 long decades. ‘These lands were all uncultivated and lying bare for almost the past 30 years’ remarks…
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A short drive past the flying buttresses of the Santa Monica Convent and nestled into the edge of the cliff of the Holy Mount in Old Goa is the oldest surviving church in Goa. Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Rosàrio, or ‘Church of Our Lady of the Rosary’ was one of the first ever religious…
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The Cidade de Goa resort in Dona Paula is probably more famous for the fact that it was designed by one of the greatest architects of all time, Charles Correa, than for it being a five star luxury beach side getaway. An extremely beautifully designed place with mesmerizing vistas and a truly picturesque setting, it…
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In the early 1950s, a series of interventions were carried out to revitalize Old Goa, the former capital of the Portuguese Estado India, spearheaded by Architect Baltazar de Castro. Out of these, one particular work of ‘restoration’ was executed which would have a wave of repercussions for generations to come: The plaster of the Bom…
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Standing tall and graciously along a bustling and thriving city artery in Panjim is the Santa Inez Church. As the population of the beautiful garden city has increased manifold over the years, the Church has survived the test of time visibly almost unscathed. It is dedicated to Saint Agnes (Ines in Portuguese) who was a…
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Why do architects suffer from an existential crisis? If you look around you, there’s a pretty high chance that the building you’re in right now was NOT designed by an architect. In fact, majority of the built environment we see around us is not designed by them. Heck, architects don’t even design their own homes.…
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